ON THE BUSES, 21st CENTURY STYLE

Good news in Oxford, where the Conservative County Council has agreed a deal with the bus companies in the city for shared ticketing. Great. Something the Lib Dems have called for for a while now.

The problem I have is that this agreement comes about 17 years after a Conservative government decided that buses should be 'deregulated', allowing any old crook or wide boy with an old transit to run a bus service, charge what they want and generally deliver a worse service than we had before.

So a reasonably good, reasonably affordable local was withdrawn by the Tories, a worse service was delivered and now the Tories are taking credit for bringing that original service back in all but name - and for a much higher price for passengers than we previously had.

Isn't progress marvellous?